INTRODUCTION
God declares:
I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord
shall be saved.
HYMN: StF 378 “Father of Everlasting Grace”
1 Father of everlasting grace,
your goodness and your truth we praise,
your goodness and your truth we prove;
you have, in honour of your Son,
the gift unspeakable sent down,
the Spirit of life, and power, and love.
2 Send us the Spirit of your Son,
to make the depths of Godhead known,
to make us share the life divine;
send him the sprinkled blood to apply,
send him our souls to sanctify,
to bless and seal us with this sign.
3 So shall we pray, and never cease,
so shall we thankfully confess
your wisdom, truth, and power, and love,
with joy unspeakable adore,
and bless and praise you evermore,
and serve you as your hosts above:
4 Till, added to that heavenly choir,
we raise our songs of triumph higher,
and praise you with a bolder voice,
out-soar the first-born seraph's flight,
and sing, with all our friends in light,
with everlasting love rejoice.
Charles Wesley (1707–1788)
Reproduced from Singing the Faith Electronic Words Edition, number 378
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pur4FbNuW0U
OPENING PRAYERS
Adoration
O God, beyond the reach of all thought,
we turn to you with finite minds.
Out of the vastness of eternity
we listen for the intimacy of your voice.
Though you are beyond all imagination
we long to gaze on your beauty.
In perfect silence
the heart of your divinity
speaks to the heart of our humanity,
love to love,
wounds to wounds.
Beyond the curving of space,
beyond the barrier of sound,
we encounter in your stillness
the centre of all our being.
O Glory beyond all brightness,
O Love beyond all telling,
O Wisdom beyond all words,
we praise you
we bless you
we worship you,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God,
Forever and ever. Amen.
Confession
Gracious and Holy God,
we confess that we have sinned
against you and against our neighbour.
Your Spirit gives light,
but we have preferred darkness;
your Spirit gives wisdom,
but we have been foolish;
your Spirit gives power,
but we have trusted in our own strength.
For the sake of Jesus Christ your Son,
forgive our sins,
and enable us by your Spirit
to serve you in joyful obedience,
to the glory of your name, Amen.
There is now no condemnation
for those who live in union with Christ Jesus;
for the law of the Spirit of life
has set us free from the law of sin and death.
Amen. Thanks be to God.
READINGS:
Acts 2: 1-12
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
John 7: 37-39
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
HYMN: StF 372 “Come Down O Love Divine”
1 Come down, O Love divine,
seek thou this soul of mine,
and visit it with thine own ardour glowing;
O Comforter, draw near,
within my heart appear,
and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.
2 O let it freely burn,
till earthly passions turn
to dust and ashes, in its heat consuming;
and let thy glorious light
shine ever on my sight,
and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.
3 Let holy charity
mine outward vesture be,
and lowliness become mine inner clothing;
true lowliness of heart,
which takes the humbler part,
and o'er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing.
4 And so the yearning strong,
with which the soul will long,
shall far outpass the power of human telling;
for none can guess its grace,
till he become the place
wherein the Holy Spirit makes his dwelling.
Bianco da Siena (d. 1434)
translated by Richard Frederick Littledale (1833–1890)
Reproduced from Singing the Faith Electronic Words Edition, number 372
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HPKL1wOVXk
SERMON
Today is the Day of Pentest, when Christians all over the world remember and celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to those first Christians in Jerusalem. Yet whenever I talk to sisters and brothers in Christ, I find confusion about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity.
Who is the Holy Spirit? What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit? Why did Jesus promise and God send the Holy Spirit?
In our readings today we are giving three pictures of the Holy Spirit; as wind, as fire and as water. They are all images that help us understand the Holy Spirit.
We read in Acts 2, “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.”
About twelve years ago Sue and I decided to take our daughter Alice to Euro Disney, which very unfortunately involved flying. I don’t like flying. At all. Not one bit. I was not a happy chap. I drove to Liverpool airport trembling like a leaf. I left part of my full English breakfast at the airport uneaten. As I walked out on the tarmac to the plane, I looked up at that great multi tonne construction and wondered not only how it would get of the ground but whether it would actually stay in the sky until it was time to land.
I sat in my seat, apparently white as a sheet, as the plane taxied to the runway and gripped my seat arms as it accelerated. Then the plane lifted into the air and my fear vanished, because I at last understood how planes work. The engines power them forward so quickly that the air rushes under the wings and lifts and supports the plane.
That is one of the things the Holy Spirit does. The Spirit lifts us up and gives us support as we try to live as Christian disciples. In Johns gospel the Spirit is called our Counsellor and our Helper; on who comes alongside us when we are beyond our own strength, when we need support and help.
The wind gives us another image of the Holy Spirit. Above Oswaldtwistle on the moors there are some wind turbines than generate electricity, that provide power. As well as supporting us the Holy Spirit empowers us to live as the people of God.
“They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.” What does it mean to us to say that the Holy Spirit is like fire?
Fire is destructive. We burn things when we want to get rid of them. Shredded documents can, in theory, be reconstructed with a lot of time, patience and Sellotape, but if we burn sensitive papers they are destroyed forever, becoming nothing more than ashes.
But fire is also purifying, burning away the rubbish and yet leaving what is pure and good. In Revelation 3:18, for example, we read, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich.” A refiner’s fire purifies. It melts down the bar of gold and separates out the impurities that ruin its value, burns them up, and leaves the gold intact.
Both refining and destruction give us a sense of one way in which the Holy Spirit works in our lives. The Spirit, with our co-operation, takes all that is within us that is God opposing and God denying, all that is selfish, and helps to burn it away so that we gradually become the people God created us to be. The fire of the Holy Spirit refines our personalities and characters, making us more Christlike.
We can understand the fire of the Spirit in another sense too. Last Sunday was Aldersgate Sunday when we remembered John Wesley’s heart being “strangely warmed” when he came to an assurance of his personal salvation through Jesus Christ.
That’s a very 18th century way of saying that his heart was on fire for Jesus. The Spirit fills us with fire, with passion for following Jesus as our Saviour and Lord, with fire to proclaim the fantastic Good News of Jesus. Are you on fire for Jesus through the Spirit? Do you have a passion for Jesus that burns within you? That passion is the fire of the Holy Spirit burning within you!
Finally, we come to our gospel reading and another image of the Holy Spirit. We read, “ Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit.”
The image of the Holy Spirit as water. Water is absolutely essential for life. Without water we would die. We need water, we cannot live without it.
As Christian disciples we cannot truly live without the water of the Holy Spirit flowing through us, permeating every part of us, giving us that spiritual lie that is so much an essential part of our humanity. We simply cannot be Christians, we cannot serve God faithfully, we cannot live Christian lives without the Holy Spirit surrounding us, supporting us and filling us with life and power and fire.
On Ascension Day the first disciples were told by Jesus, “Stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”
Those first disciples needed the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives if they were to serve Jesus, and so do we, his disciples today. If we are indeed Christians then the Holy Spirit is within us, uplifting us, empowering us, refining us, firing us up for God and filling us with life.
PRAYERS OF CONCERN
Gracious God,
whose Spirit helps us in our weakness
and guides us in our prayers,
we pray for the Church and for the world
in the name of Jesus Christ.
Lord in your mercy
hear our prayer.
Renew the life and faith of the Church;
strengthen our witness;
and make us one in Christ.
Grant that we and all who confess that Christ is Lord
may be faithful in your service
and filled with the Spirit,
that the world may be turned to you.
Lord in your mercy
hear our prayer.
Guide the nations
in the ways of justice, liberty and peace;
and help them to seek
the unity and welfare of all people.
Help us to co-operate as a human race
in tackling the scourge of the Coronavirus.
Give to all in authority
wisdom to know and strength to do what is right.
Lord in your mercy
hear our prayer.
Comfort those in sorrow;
heal the sick in body or in mind
and deliver the oppressed.
Grant us compassion for all who suffer,
and help us so to carry one another’s burdens
that we may fulfil the law of Christ.
Lord in your mercy
hear our prayer.
Receive our thanks and praise
for all who have served you faithfully here on earth,
and especially those who have revealed to us
your grace in Christ.
May we and all your people
share the life and joy of your Kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
HYMN: StF 370 “Breathe On Me Breath of God”
1 Breathe on me, Breath of God;
fill me with life anew,
that I may love what thou dost love,
and do what thou wouldst do.
2 Breathe on me, Breath of God,
until my heart is pure,
until with thee I will one will,
to do and to endure.
3 Breathe on me, Breath of God,
till I am wholly thine,
until this earthly part of me
glows with thy fire divine.
4 Breathe on me, Breath of God;
so shall I never die,
but live with thee the perfect life
of thine eternity.
Edwin Hatch (1835–1889)
Reproduced from Singing the Faith Electronic Words Edition, number 370
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmkzSjs9eAw
PRAYER
Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit on the disciples
with the wind from heaven and with tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
send us out in the power of the same Spirit
to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
BLESSING
The Spirit of truth lead us into all truth,
give us grace to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
and to proclaim the works and word of God:
And the blessing of God,
Spirit, Son and Father,
remain with us always.
Amen.
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